Although both the editor and the magazine are no longer in contention, he has made available the sample from IGMS that was assembled for the Hugo Voter Packet, for reasons explained below.

The full text of his statement was published by Alethea Kontis, on John Scalzi’s Whatever, and elsewhere.

My name is Edmund R. Schubert, and I am announcing my withdrawal from the Hugo category of Best Editor (Short Form). My withdrawal comes with complications, but if you’ll bear with me, I’ll do my best to explain. I am withdrawing because:

I believe that while the Sad Puppies’ stated goal of bringing attention to under-recognized work may have been well-intentioned, their tactics were seriously flawed. While I personally find it challenging that some people won’t read IGMS because they disagree with the publisher’s perceived politics (which have nothing whatsoever to do with what goes into the magazine), I can’t in good conscience complain about the deck being stacked against me, and then feel good about being nominated for an award when the deck gets stacked in my favor. That would make me a hypocrite. I can’t be part of that and still maintain my integrity.

Vox Day/Theodore Beale/Rabid Puppies. Good grief. While I firmly believe that free speech is only truly free if everyone is allowed to speak their mind, I believe equally strongly that defending people’s right to free speech comes with responsibilities: in this case, the responsibility to call out unproductive, mean-spirited, inflammatory, and downright hateful speech. I believe that far too many of Vox’s words fall into those categories—and a stand has to be made against it.

Ping pong. (Yes, really.) A ping pong ball only ever gets used by people who need something to hit as a way to score points, and I am through being treated like a political ping pong ball—by all sorts of people across the entire spectrum. Done.

Regrettably this situation is complicated by the fact that when I came to this decision, the WorldCon organizers told me the ballot was ‘frozen.’ This is a pity, because in addition to wanting ‘out’ of the ping pong match, I would very much have liked to see someone else who had earned it on their own (without the benefit of a slate) get on the ballot in my place. But the ballots had already been sent off to the printers.

Unfortunately this may reduce my actions to a symbolic gesture, but I can’t let that prevent me from following my conscience.

So it seems that the best I can do at this stage is ask everyone with a Hugo ballot to pretend I’m not there. Ignore my name, because if they call my name at the award ceremony, I won’t accept the chrome rocketship. My name may be on that ballot, but it’s not there the way I’d have preferred.

I will not, however, advocate for an across-the-board No Award vote. That penalizes people who are innocent, for the sake of making a political point. Vox Day chose to put himself and his publishing company, Castalia House, in the crosshairs, which makes him fair game—but not everybody, not unilaterally. I can’t support that.

Here’s what I do want to do, though, to address where I think the Sad Puppies were off-target: I don’t think storming the gates of WorldCon was the right way to bring attention to worthy stories. Whether or not you take the Puppies at their word is beside the matter; it’s what they said they wanted, and I think bringing attention to under-represented work is an excellent idea.

So I want to expand the reading pool.

Of course, I always think more reading is a good thing. Reading is awesome. Reading—fiction, specifically—has been proven to make people more empathetic, and God knows we need as much empathy as we can possibly get these days. I also believe that when readers give new works by new authors an honest chance, they’ll find things they appreciate and enjoy.

In that spirit, I am taking the material that would have comprised my part of the Hugo Voters Packet and making it available to everyone, everywhere, for free, whether they have a WorldCon membership or not. Take it. Read it. Share it. It’s yours to do with as you will.

The only thing I ask is that whatever you do, do it honestly.

Don’t like some of these stories? That’s cool; at least I’ll know you don’t like them because you read them, not because you disagree with political ideologies that have nothing to do with the stories.

You do like them? Great; share them with a friend. Come and get some more.

But whatever you decide, decide it honestly, not to score a point.

And let me be clear about this: While I strongly disagree with the way Sad Puppies went about it… when the Puppies say they feel shut out because of their politics, it’s hard for me to not empathize because I’ve seen IGMS’s authors chastised for selling their story to us, simply because of people’s perceptions about the publisher’s personal views. I’ve also seen people refuse to read any of the stories published in IGMS for the same reason.

With regard to that, I want to repeat something I’ve said previously: while Orson Scott Card and I disagree on several social and political subjects, we respect each other and don’t let it get in the way of IGMS’s true goal: supporting writers and artists of all backgrounds and preferences. The truth is that Card is neither devil nor saint; he’s just a man who wants to support writers and artists—and he doesn’t let anything stand in the way of that.

As editor of IGMS, I can, and have, and will continue to be—with the full support of publisher Orson Scott Card—open to publishing stories by and about gay authors and gay characters, stories by and about female authors and female characters, stories by authors and about characters of any and every racial, political, or religious affiliation—as long as I feel like those authors 1) have a story to tell, not a point to score, and 2) tell that story well. And you know what? Orson is happy to have me do so. Because the raison d’etre of IGMS is to support writers and artists. Period.

IGMS—Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show—is open to everyone. All the way. Always has been, always will be. All I ask, all I have ever asked, is that people’s minds operate in the same fashion.

Consider this the beginning then of the larger reading campaign that should have been. To kick it off, I offer you this sampling from IGMS, which represents the essence of how I see the magazine—a reflection of the kind of stories I want to fill IGMS with, that will help make it the kind of magazine I want IGMS to be—and that I believe it can be if readers and writers alike will give it a fair chance.

If you have reading suggestions of your own, I heartily encourage you help me build and distribute a list.

(Yes, I know, there are already plenty of reading lists out there. But you will never convince me that there is such a thing as too much reading. Never.)

99 thoughts on “Edmund R. Schubert Withdraws As Hugo Nominee”

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Thought-experiments have a venerable philosophical heritage, and are very useful tools to help clarify our thinking and our ideas. At the same, inane caricatures of a reasonable and legitimate thought-experiment in no way invalidates a reasonable and legitimate thought-experiment. At best, it shows the creator of the caricature to be a bit foolish.

Now, say what you want, but let’s not kid ourselves. If the Puppies did everything that they did in reality, but they were being run by a group of Middle Eastern female Muslims seeking to promote Islamic/Middle Eastern Science Fiction, or if they were being run by a group of LGBT Activists seeking to fill the Hugo’s with LGBT Science Fiction, then while there would no doubt be grumblings about what they did, we all know that the reaction of the Anti-Puppies would be much more polite, less vitriolic, less spiteful, less calling the leaders of the Puppies the worst human beings in the world, and so on. In essence, the reaction would be markedly different than it is now. And such a difference would tell us that, in large part, the problem with the real Puppies is not what they did, but who they are. And this is what the Puppies have been saying all along.

(And note, for example, that an orthodox Muslim would have similar views to Vox Day, but do you believe for one second that if it was a Muslim leading the Puppies (Vox Allah, for example), that the same level of vitriol and bile and venom would be spewed his way? If you think so, then you are fooling yourself. Oh there would be anger, but it would be much more restrained and polite and culturally-sensitive. And that difference would be telling.)

Oh come xdpaul’s stuff is kinda fun isn’t it? Bounce in, say something wrong, have it refuted, bounce away, have an almost identical xdpaul say similar in the same way, then he bounces back to start it all over again.

Vox Maximus: “Now, say what you want, but let’s not kid ourselves. If the Puppies did everything that they did in reality, but they were being run by a group of Middle Eastern female Muslims seeking to promote Islamic/Middle Eastern Science Fiction, or if they were being run by a group of LGBT Activists seeking to fill the Hugo’s with LGBT Science Fiction, then while there would no doubt be grumblings about what they did, we all know that…”

No, we don’t all know that. In fact, I, and a significant number of spec fic fans I know, would have a HUGE problem no matter who was sponsoring the slate, or what their claimed reasons were.

The problem, not just with your little “thought experiment”, but with the Puppy Slate itself, is that you Puppies seem to be convinced that everyone else thinks the same way you do, and has the same lack of ethics and character you do.

This continually leads you to draw the wrong conclusions about what other people think, and how they would react — because you just can’t conceive that other people might think very differently than you (which is, of course, also the reason the Puppies claim that non-Puppies couldn’t *possibly* actually enjoy what they’re nominating, because the Puppies themselves don’t enjoy it).

How are non-Puppies supposed to work cooperatively with people who are so entirely lacking in any sort or ethics or morality that they would say this? That ethics are something a person can simply choose discard whenever it’s convenient?

“So, I think we can dispense with the accusation that SAD PUPPIES is doing something that is not done, or has not been done, for the sake of ethics. There is no ethic. A rule that is endlessly violated, is no longer a rule. It might be a quaint sentiment. But it’s useless. And arguing from a standpoint of propriety — in this context — is either naive, or obtuse. Or just flat out dishonest.”http://www.donotlink.com/ewm4

“No, we don’t all know that. In fact, I, and a significant number of spec fic fans I know, would have a HUGE problem no matter who was sponsoring the slate, or what their claimed reasons were.”

Oh course you would have a problem with it, as I readily admitted. In fact, you might even vote No Award in such a case (although I doubt that that would happen). The point, however, is that the way your frustration would be expressed in such a situation would be much less vitriolic, more controlled, less vile, and so on. And that difference is telling.

As a hostile Commenter on my post at my blog just admitted: “You’re actually *somewhat* right. Because it [the Muslim or LGBT Puppies] would not be perceived as a bunch of people who used to have power and privilege reasserting it — it would be seen as different people causing trouble,..”

And that is the point: the Anti-Puppy reaction is different towards the actual Puppies than it would be towards the Muslim / LGBT Puppies because of who the real Puppies are, namely (as my Commentator claimed) “a bunch of people who used to have power and privilege reasserting it..” And that is, in part, what the Puppies have claimed all along.

No racists or misogynists did any hijacking of the Hugos. Neither did the Sad Puppies. The Rabid Puppies, maybe? We’ll have to see when the full data comes out, but even there it’s no slam-dunk.

A small group of insiders helped each other get nominations informally and this is somehow “earning it alone on merit”. Now that actual real fans got to nominate some stuff they liked, the world’s ending and, uh, cats and dogs are living together!

The people flipping out about loss of privilege are the privileged, mostly white, mostly male folks who benefited from the Hugos being obscure-secure for a handful of people who were willing to learn a lot of silly secret handshakes to dip into the pool of nominations whenever they wanted another bullet point on the old resume. The normals who showed up for SP never had privilege. They just liked SFF, guns and pie. And for this they are excoriated for existing.

Beale is a racist and a misogynist. He hijacked the Hugos for pure ego and trolling the reasons. 70% of the nomninees are from the rabies slate.

Otherwise, “human”, I expect you are one of those SJW:s I’ve heard of so much? Your vocabulary seems to point at that. “Privilige”. “Mostly white”. You mean that Beale, Correia, Wright, Hoyt and Torgersen aren’t?

And I would like to learn about that secret handshake. Has it anything to do with chemtrails?

And see, again, this is the disconnect between how Puppies think, and how non-puppies think.

Puppies are in this to protect their straight-white-manly-men-rescuing-the-buxom-but-brainless-bimbos-from-the-horrible-SJW-cabal SF privilege. Therefore, they are convinced that that’s all everyone else is concerned about: protecting their own special interests, their “privilege”.

The idea that people could actually be upset because something they have respected, and caretaked, and contributed to in good faith for many years was hijacked, is utterly incomprehensible to a group of people who perceive the Hugos as nothing more than a Citadel To Be Stormed, A Battle To Be Fought, A Game To Be Won Against The Other Guy At All Costs And Neener-Neener! We Beat You! Bow To Our Superior Lack of Scruples!

This is why the Puppies can’t understand the non-puppies. This is why the Puppies are convinced that the gaming has been sekritly going on for decades. Because the Puppies simply cannot CONCEIVE that there are people who don’t think like this.

How do you bridge the gap and foster cooperation between groups who think so differently? I don’t know.

—-Edmund R. Schubert wrote:
“And let me be clear about this: While I strongly disagree with the way Sad Puppies went about it… when the Puppies say they feel shut out because of their politics, it’s hard for me to not empathize because I’ve seen IGMS’s authors chastised for selling their story to us, simply because of people’s perceptions about the publisher’s personal views. I’ve also seen people refuse to read any of the stories published in IGMS for the same reason.”
—-

Even for those that disagree with the way they went about it (and there is legitimate criticism to be made there), it seems to me that in many respects the puppies have been a necessary breath of fresh air in a rarefied atmosphere, allowing certain things to be said. I’m also glad that Mr. Schubert has been granted a well-deserved opportunity to get out of the political blacklists and be heard, and to get the stories he publishes some exposure.

‘Oh there would be anger, but it would be much more restrained and polite and culturally-sensitive. And that difference would be telling.)’

You do remember the rhetoric which accompanied these SP/RP campaigns, don’t you? The vitriol, the bile, the insults, the resentment and anger and the generally calling the SJWs and gatekeepers the worst people in the world? And now the incessant sealioning and the arch passive-agressive posturing of one of the architects? You remember them? They may have played a minor role in the responses.

—-“You do remember the rhetoric which accompanied these SP/RP campaigns, don’t you? The vitriol, the bile, the insults, the resentment and anger and the generally calling the SJWs and gatekeepers the worst people in the world?”—-

I don’t know. I have been looking for a few days, since shortly after the nominations were announced, and the vitriol and hate being flung around has not been coming from the puppies’ camp.

JJ, I don’t really think it at all fair that you ask xdpaul to do the impossible.

We should all recognize that the capacity for rational thought has long since departed, if it was ever present to begin with.

Ask him to parrot; ask him to obsess on a pointless point; ask him to attempt a pseudo-intellectual insult; ask him to reject reality and substitute his own foundationless fantasy world and you’ll get a marvellous performance – morbidly fascinating on occasion.

But rationality? Coherence? You know that old saw about crapping in one hand and wishing for diamonds to fill the other, right?

Remember, this all started out as an experiment to screw the SJWs, whoever they were. Apparently the Hugos represented people who didn’t actually enjoy reading but only wanted to promote story-distorting messages that promoted progressive themes and shut out old-fashioned fun. Stuff that was literary, and therefore, as any fule no, unreadable. TB says they’re all liars. Torgerson threatens to beat up anyone who doesn’t respect his integritah. Hoyt thinks they’re indoctrinated drones. Wright calls people, what was it? Illiterate, for one. Here’s Correia: ‘For the one loudmouth I’m being demanded to account for, just among the award winning and nominated folks on the other side you’ve got NAMBLA supporters, psychopathic trolls, and a whole mess of racists.’ That’s him failing to distance himself from TB, by the way. I remember near the start of this round of the debacle when a bunch of them came over here and sneered down their noses like born and bred aristocrats at Mike Glyer for being little people. Their posture has been one of hostile aggression all along, even the tacked-on positive objectives about improving the quality of the nominees is effectively an insult to the organisers and voters, particularly since they can’t articulate precisely what’s been wrong, in terms of quality, with past nominees, and the quality of what they have nominated is, in some cases, a complete joke. So, yeah, they got hostility and aggression back, and most of them feel predictably aggrieved that their own wasn’t conveniently forgotten, and at least one will rub his hands and say yes, yes, all according to plan whether everybody bawls each other out or breaks into a song and dance routine.

Worldcon involves hard hard work by volunteers. SP/RPs have displayed nothing but contempt and disgust for them.

Worse than any insult, though, they say positive things about Gamergate, and tried to involve them. That’s unforgiveable.

“Worse than any insult, though, they say positive things about Gamergate, and tried to involve them. That’s unforgiveable.”

Well, I have no interest in gaming and I’m not from the US. I heard about Gamergate for the first time a few days ago (not because the puppies were talking about them, but because anti-puppies were saying that Gamergate was behind the puppies). Now that I know about them, and after the media campaign I have seen against the puppies, I have to wonder if they are truly evil as people are claiming or if they have been similarly slandered.

Regarding Vox Maximus’s thought-experiment, we already know what would happen if people who were more left-wing than the fannish mainstream wanted to call attention to stories that (in their opinion) would otherwise get less appreciation than they deserved. That’s how the Tiptree Awards were started.

‘I have to wonder if they are truly evil as people are claiming or if they have been similarly slandered.’

Similarly to what? Gamergate is awful and Gamergaters are awful people. They’re not behind SP/RP except inasmuch as TB claims to be a prominent Gater, and Correia tried to get them interested but they were too busy composing rape threats and such.

Similarly to how SP have been misrepresented. You say Gamergaters are awful people, and you may or may not be right. However, I no longer believe what I read about it in the Guardian or similar media. That does not mean Gamergaters are not evil, just that I’ll reserve judgment.

Is that similar or dissimilar to the way the SP/RPs have represented the Hugos and Worldcon organisers? Do you think those organisers have been treated fairly in all this? TB just posted a comment to the effect that quality doesn’t matter in his schemes and he is pondering various ways of fucking with those organisers as a way of getting at people like Scalzi and PNH. Do you think there’s an equivalence between the two sides?

“Worldcon involves hard hard work by volunteers. SP/RPs have displayed nothing but contempt and disgust for them. Worse than any insult, though, they say positive things about Gamergate, and tried to involve them. That’s unforgiveable.”

You’re lying. We have said nothing negative about the Worldcon volunteers. Nor do we harbor any contempt or disgust for them. Our contempt and disgust is reserved for SJWs like you. In part because SJWs always lie.

“They’re not behind SP/RP except inasmuch as TB claims to be a prominent Gater, and Correia tried to get them interested but they were too busy composing rape threats and such.”

It’s true, contra many assertions by various SF SJWs, #GamerGate is not behind SP/RP. And I do not claim to be “a prominent Gater”. I am merely a humble Leader of #GamerGate, just like every other Leader of #GamerGate.

There were precisely two #GamerGaters involved in RP, Daddy Warpig and me. More are involved now, mostly as a result of the Making Light SJWs attacking GG. There are no #GamerGaters involved in SP.

SJW:s like who? The expression seems to mean almost anything, so it would be nice to know what persons it is supposed to mean this time.

And a leader of gamergate. It is so stupid. Gamergate is just a big mob. If there existed leaders, maybe Rogue Star, Ethan Ralph or Milo Yiannopoulos could be named as such. Not a lone rabies puppy that most people never had heard of before.

Oh, and of course gamergaters are involved in SP. John C. Wright is one example.

There’s an old saying, “If the shoe fits, wear it,” but by the same token, if the shoe doesn’t fit, then don’t wear it. If the Sad Puppies aren’t responsible for what the Rabid Puppies did, why do they insist on wearing the shoe if it doesn’t fit?

“There were precisely two #GamerGaters involved in RP, Daddy Warpig and me. More are involved now, mostly as a result of the Making Light SJWs attacking GG. There are no #GamerGaters involved in SP.”

Yeah, but no, no matter how many times you repeat it all over the web.

First off, how can you tell? Has everyone involved in SP to any degree signed a pledge that they are not and have never been also involved in GG? Amorphous movement and all that, you know. Fuzzy boundaries are kind of the point.

And second, I’m sure you can argue that Larry Correia is not “involved” in GG, by whatever carefully crafted definition you choose to employ, but he did reach out to Nero back in January, and got the signal boost he wanted (as did you).

We actually have some evidence about what would happen if someone tried using Puppy-esque tactics with a social-justice justification. It turns out to be nothing like what the Puppies daydream of. Laura Mixon has a Best Related Work nomination for her essay on Benjanun Sriduangkaew and the harm she’s done. It’s a hotly debated topic – at least one person I think well of in most regards vigorously defends Sriduangkaew, and I’ve seen some others do the same, while a bunch of others equally strongly agree with the charges and assessments that Mixon laid out. And it’s been an actual argument, about setting priorities in ranking our various values, about the weight to give diverse facts and the context in which to put them, the whole deal. What didn’t happen is that fantasy of all of us cheering on people trampling long-standing conventions to cheer on the zealous, calculated, callous pursuit of a single agenda.

“As a hostile Commenter on my post at my blog just admitted: “You’re actually *somewhat* right. Because it [the Muslim or LGBT Puppies] would not be perceived as a bunch of people who used to have power and privilege reasserting it — it would be seen as different people causing trouble,..””

VoxMax appears to not understand that “different” is not “lesser” or “greater”, but “different.”

I think most people would agree that you react somewhat differently to different opposition, based on its nature — to do otherwise is foolish (though, perhaps, also Puppyish, given their repeated conflation of their opposition).

So, no, it wouldn’t be exactly the same response. OTOH, that is not the same as “Oh, they’d be treated leniently and so it’s all about the Puppy politics.”

Btw, I recommend people to search for “vox day gamergate” on twitter now. The feed is full of gamergaters disavowing Beale. Seems like he is too much even for most of those trolls. And still he claims to be one of their leaders. Pfffft.

It is kind of obvious that Beale got help from the gators to push his slate up. But it is also kind of obvious that it was just a minority of the gators that helped. Even they can’t tolerate him and now they are trying to link him to antigators.

There are already Middle Eastern Muslims, male and female, who read science fiction. An oil sheikh with jihadi sympathies could easily recruit a few hundred English-literate sympathizers, send each of them forty bucks, and ask them to buy a Worldcon membership and nominate Inspire, al-Qaeda’s English magazine, to receive a Hugo for “Best Related Work”.

Of course, they haven’t done that yet, perhaps because the people with actual warfare on their minds have better things to spend their money on.

“Btw, I recommend people to search for “vox day gamergate” on twitter now. The feed is full of gamergaters disavowing Beale. Seems like he is too much even for most of those trolls. And still he claims to be one of their leaders. ”

I am the Leader of #GamerGate. This is a simple fact.

“It is kind of obvious that Beale got help from the gators to push his slate up. But it is also kind of obvious that it was just a minority of the gators that helped. Even they can’t tolerate him and now they are trying to link him to antigators.”

I have literally hundreds of numbered vile faceless minions. I needed no help from #GamerGate. You clearly don’t understand how GG works. We share certain goals at certain time. We have nothing in common besides those goals. The very people who you think “disavowed” me have worked with me on ops before and will do so in the future.

Hampus Eckerman — It’s so difficult to tell if VD is being ironic or not. His reputations for both delusion and obfuscation precede him, unfortunately. Perhaps he’ll be along to clear that up for us in his best condescending manner.